We stayed away from the brief time of her second life and I suppose it’s just as well; aside from the uncomfortable reality it brought to Aline, there was nothing for me to experience or understand about a mother’s death. Enydd’s life, however, was another matter, and I smiled in spite of the wretched conditions she endured because it poured out a thousand more questions to every answer. I imagined again how it might be for an audience of historians, scholars, and archaeologists—people like Damon—listening in dumbfounded awe to Aline’s every word and the priceless opportunity to find and hold onto truth and real understanding of a distant past.
In the morning, she mixed up some cocoa and when she poured it into cups beneath a trail of steam, we settled for my next “lesson.” I asked her who she was in the fourth of her seven lives, but her expression became solemn and she looked at the floor. She pulled from her archive box more papers and printed pages from who knows how many historical reference documents and websites. At the beginning of the notes on an ordinary spiral-bound pad, I saw a name that seemed more modern Welsh to me than any given to an Iron Age girl, and Aline spoke as I read.
“Marged Caffyn,” she began. “Born in winter 1338 near Caernarfon.”
After plowing through European history to refresh my understanding of the Middle Ages (mostly because Aline made me), obscure dates I’d learned in school made a lot more sense in that process than they ever did when I was young.
“Right at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War,” I declared proudly, and just to show her I did pay attention, my report continued. “Long after William showed up at Hastings, which means pretty much everyone was speaking French by then?”
“Not quite,” she replied blandly, “particularly among the common folk, but you have the correct timeline.”
Aline’s tone left no doubt she wasn’t in a playful mood. I retreated and asked for the story, but it was the ending that made for her suddenly somber mood. Marged was the middle of three children by a blacksmith who spent most of his time forging weapons for the king’s foot soldiers and lesser knights—a single-purpose production line for iron spear tips, simple daggers, and arrowheads by the hundred. Her description of daily existence in the 1300s didn’t sound meaningfully different to me from those she made of Enydd’s life three hundred years before, and the stark similarity reminded me in today’s age of rapid and incessant technological progress how little things changed once upon a time.
Anticipating a fast-forward to another marriage and the drudgeries of village life in the shadow of a Norman castle, I wondered if “Caffyn” was her maiden name or that of her eventual husband. Aline looked at me with sad eyes and said, “I didn’t make it that far.”
She pointed to a single line on a page from her notes and in it, a date: “11 March 1350.” She showed me more photocopies of public notice documents in an ongoing process of memorializing each day’s casualties in Monmouth.
Sometime in the late eighteenth century, she reported, an academic exercise was completed for the purpose of creating duplicate records, translated from Latin into English, to the benefit of scholars without access to archived originals. The information a scrivener recreated faithfully showed the March 11 date and names of people in the southern Welsh city who succumbed. A notation still in Latin near the top of the page cited “Pestis” as the cause for each of the twenty-two deaths registered only the day before, and on the list was a simple line that explained Aline’s mood. It was brief, concise, and sent a shiver up my spine:
“Marged Caffyn, 12 years. Died this day ‘neath Monnow Gate.”
Nothing needed to be said. A relentless and efficient killer, the Black Death swept across Europe from its apparent origins in southern Russia, taking at least 25 million people—a third of the population of Europe—in less than a decade. One of the victims when the plague finally reached southeastern Wales was a young girl called Marged.
I waited until Aline nodded for us to continue, but it seemed weird and wrong to dwell on so horrible an end to her fourth life. Perhaps it was Marged’s tender age, or the unspeakable agony she endured until the end found and delivered her to darkness, but I hoped Aline would leave it and return to finish the history later. Instead, she sat and tried to smile, so I knelt beside her and asked if she was sure.
“Marged’s life was brief, but it was also mine and you need to understand.”
“I can see what happened but how did she begin?”
“I was born in Caernarfon where my father worked as a blacksmith. My grandfather—also a smith—was badly injured in a fall and he died a few days later. They sent word for my father to assume ownership of the family’s shop, but it meant leaving everything behind and moving to Monmouth.”
“That’s a big step,” I noted and Aline agreed.
“People weren’t mobile like they are today.”
I thought about that time and the logistics involved, knowing a move of everything you own 150 miles away was no simple hop in the fourteenth century.
“Fill up the ox cart and put one foot in front of the other?”
“The journey to Monmouth is one of the most vivid times I can see from that life. It took forever. We were near starvation and out of money by the time we arrived, and I hated my father for making us go.”
She waited a while and when she went on, I could sense the growing tension because she filtered it through to my thoughts so I would feel and understand how her life went from ordinary and relatively comfortable (for a medieval family) to a long and taxing plod the length of the country. I saw images and the somber mood of her parents, bickering back and forth throughout to make it obvious her mother wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect, either. Shabby, remote way-houses smelled vile and were often hives of greasy, unwashed locals who aimed leering stares at Marged and she knew, even at her age, what it meant.
Their journey was lengthy but once arrived, she said, the welcome extended by the wife of her father’s cousin was cold and forced. Marged never knew why their own relatives held such resentment, but it was likely made from disappointment when Marged’s father assumed property the cousin wanted for himself. Regardless, new arrangements only made worse her feeling of isolation and loneliness until the cousin’s family moved away, but their settled life didn’t last long. A neighbor told them of reports spreading quickly through town that a merchant’s son returning from Weymouth on a small cargo vessel had fallen gravely ill, and his sickness was obvious: the plague had come with him and its horrors would soon change everything.
Aline stopped a while, walking slowly between her kitchen and front room as the images passed through her mind. I couldn’t see or feel them, and when I asked, she told me there was no reason I should; the pain and fear of a little girl when the first telltale sores appeared was not something she would allow beyond Tegwen’s memories.
They knew what it meant, she said, and her grandmother’s worry the pestilence was God’s fierce punishment for their lack of piety made little sense (or difference) to a child who hadn’t been alive long enough to understand the idea of sin. All too soon, calls from the street to “bring the dead” were shouted out with demands from their priest for help digging huge pits into which the day’s victims would be dumped and covered over with a thin layer of dirt. Every evening, the ghastly task was repeated.
Accounts recorded all across Europe were grim and mostly uniform regardless of kingdom or citizenship: The Black Death cut down rich and poor alike, and it moved with astonishing speed. Whole villages fell in weeks and the body count soared so badly, many of the corpses were burned atop pyramids of tree branches in a desperate attempt to cleanse the land. Those with any kind of wealth fled the towns (and what few cities there were), hoping to find refuge in the countryside, but there was little chance of escaping the invisible horror.
I asked Aline if she remembered the pain, but she would only say the “moments” stopped so abruptly it was likely she died within a day or two after the first symptoms appeared. Suff
erers may well have been submerged in a semi-lucid state as the fever took them over, and because of it, I reasoned, Marged was likely unconscious when it ended for her. I still find it interesting Aline’s reaction to that particular life was so strong, and it made me wonder if there were other moments and the ravages of the Black Death she wouldn’t show, shielding me perhaps from its terrible effect.
On the following morning I noticed the plastic tub and cardboard boxes littering her dining room table were returned to their hole in the wall, but she didn’t ask me to push the heavy sideboard to hide it from view; there were two more lives for me to learn about and understand.
WE WENT ON a Saturday road trip up to Liverpool as a deliberate (and welcome) diversion from the somber mood left behind by the details of Marged Caffyn’s short, unpleasant life. The purpose, Aline told me, was an earlier promise she’d made to Vienne that I would be forced to consider a new car, and since she favored the brand, Hatfields Land Rover near the banks of the Mersey was our destination.
It was a wonderful outing and a convenient excuse for Aline to get in some “big city” Liverpool shopping, a perfect choice for venturing out and away from the history lessons for a while. Poking around the dealership’s display floor didn’t do much to improve my notorious and stubborn ideas of thrift. I’d had no intention of committing to such a thing when we left her house, but the decent trade-in value they offered for my used Nissan, and Aline’s relentless goading, resulted in bank transfers and signatures for an ice-blue Range Rover Sport model before I could change my mind. When I asked Aline why she didn’t take her own advice and look at one for herself, she just smiled and said, “Maybe in the summer.”
“They have a bunch to choose from,” I countered. “Why not let them fix you up with one of the big ones?”
“Next time,” she said with a grin. “I want two doors and a lot more horsepower.”
It was nice to hear a giggle and her return from the solemn moments seeing and remembering her life as Marged and the sadness of knowing how and why she died so young. Aline didn’t need my pity, and I didn’t offer, but I wondered if the remaining of her seven lives would take her to another past she’d rather avoid. It wasn’t the right time to ask, so we spent the afternoon figuring out how to work all the features in my expensive new car until her phone buzzed with an incoming call. When I asked who it was, the number originated in London and we knew at once: Burke waited on the other end of the line.
ALINE put the phone in speaker mode and the drama resumed.
“Miss Lloyd,” he began, “I wonder if you’ve given some thought to our earlier inquiries?”
“We’ve been busy, Mr. Burke,” she answered, and her tone was anything but friendly. It didn’t deter him and he moved the conversation along quickly.
“No doubt, but I rather hoped you might find a few moments for us,” he continued. “Time has passed, you see, and our masters…well, they’re becoming twitchy, worrying you may decide to slip away in the dark of night.”
“They are mistaken,” she replied defiantly. “I have no intention of running from you or anyone else.”
“Then perhaps we could meet and continue our discussion?”
She looked at me, and I shrugged with indifference; there was no point in expecting Burke would let it go, and my fight-or-flight instinct was trending decidedly toward fight.
“I don’t want to see you in my shop again,” she said curtly, “but I suppose another spot would do for your purposes. What did you have in mind?”
“We do have a cooperative arrangement with one or two military installations, and a secure space at Norton Manor in Somerset has been put at our disposal for this sort of thing.”
“Go on.”
“It’s a Royal Marines camp very near Taunton.”
She looked at me once more and I shook my head to signal my doubts, but I knew she could hear them anyway.
“No,” she answered simply.
Watching her dismiss a man with Burke’s power and influence was particularly satisfying and maybe more amusing that I should admit. His sudden awkward pause made it clear she had caught him off guard, and I expected a disjointed, fumbled reply. Instead, the ever-cool and unflappable Burke held course.
“May I ask why not?”
“Really, Mr. Burke,” she said with a sneer, “do you expect us to go into a military camp and watch stupidly as they lock the gate behind us?”
“You misunderstand,” he replied. “We have no interest in detaining you.”
I imagined he was speaking through another of his automatic, disingenuous smiles. I hoped Aline would tell him to piss off, but she closed her eyes and said, “Very well, Mr. Burke; what do you propose?”
“I’ll make arrangements and meet you at the gate, shall we say, this time tomorrow?”
“And then?”
“There are relatively comfortable quarters that will be made available where we can sit together and have a private conversation.”
“What is the purpose of this visit?”
“We are simply interested in learning and understanding, Miss Lloyd—there will be only conversation, and you are always free to go any time you wish.”
Burke was thinking ahead, but I didn’t see it in those tense moments.
“No promises,” she answered bluntly.
It didn’t faze him, and Burke said, “Mr. Morgan, I presume you will be joining as well?”
I found it needless to make a point of showing me he wasn’t concerned or worried about my involvement, but it was no surprise. A last glance from Aline and she said, “Perhaps tomorrow, Mr. Burke.”
Before he could answer, she disconnected and sat on a bar stool in her kitchen waiting for me to say something, but there was no need. Wherever Burke was going with his persistent interest, she wasn’t willing to encourage it by a cordial (and committed) agreement. I knew she was ready to go, but it was still fun to watch her make him squirm.
ON SUNDAY MORNING we finished breakfast and pointed the car south toward Cardiff. Aline hadn’t been to Somerset in a while and I never had. She wasn’t interested in idle chitchat, so I paid attention to the road and kept quiet; if Aline felt my rising anxiety (which was a given in my experience), she made no mention of it. By the time we followed the M4 across the Bristol Channel by way of a new bridge at Severn Beach, the churn in my stomach was a distraction and still she seemed unmoved by it all. An hour later we eased slowly along a gentle country highway until the fence line of Norton Manor Camp appeared on our left, wearing a predictable crown of razor wire as it funneled us downhill past an old artillery piece and a simple blue sign announcing “40 Commando, Royal Marines.”
Burke was waiting at a guard house, and we sat quietly as the credential inspection began, and when it concluded, a very stout corporal motioned us briskly toward a shiny black Jaguar sedan for a quick ride along the narrow streets of the camp until it stopped in front of an ordinary building. Somebody opened the doors for us, and we followed inside to what appeared to be a small classroom where mission briefings might be held, and within, four others leaned against tables behind false smiles we knew not to trust. After the door closed with a solid “clunk,” Burke began.
“The demure accommodations were arranged last minute, so I do hope you’ll bear with us?”
I watched Aline watching Burke, and for a terrifying moment the anger seeped through from her thoughts, threatening to derail a discussion yet to begin.
“We’re here,” she began. “Let’s get on with it.”
Burke nodded with a smile and it was obvious he’d expected her short reply as he extended a hand at the two who came with him to Colwyn Bay.
“You may remember Kevin and William from our first visit to your shop, but also with us today is Colonel Halliwell and to his right, Mr. Gregory Hurd representing the interests of Downing Street.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Stuart Halliwell?”
“Yes, that’s right,” he replie
d with a confused glance at Burke.
“Andy Leach says hello; wanted me to tell you he still owes you a beer.”
Halliwell grinned immediately and the tension surrounding us seemed to disappear. Dropping Andy’s name brought a sudden legitimacy I could never have won on my own, and the silent, ironclad bond joining “Spec Ops” people became a bridge between worlds. Burke nodded with a smile, knowing I had made a few calls since that first day at Aline’s shop, but I didn’t care.
I wanted to smile and nod now that the mysterious Hurd/Halliwell duo was finally known, but Aline was not as forgiving, and she walked straight at Hurd. When he stiffened suddenly and leaned back in reflex, it was clear she was already inside and probing.
“If he wanted to speak with me,” she said, and only to Burke, “why wait until now?”
Hurd’s disaffected expression changed at once, and I saw in his eyes a worry turning quickly to fear.
“I’m quite certain our colleagues are grateful you’ve chosen to join us,” Burke interjected hopefully as he moved forward, but Aline wasn’t finished, and Hurd winced just as the ever-present Kevin stepped quickly between them to shield his chief. It took only a moment—a second in time—before the silent soldier’s eyes closed tightly (just as Hurd’s had), and I reached for her.
“Let’s hear them out,” I offered.
When she released him at last, Kevin stood away and the sudden, confusing effect of Aline’s thoughts sawing through unhindered left him shaken. There is a clear distinction between those moments when she’s merely “listening” and the jolting sensation when a target feels the dull ache of purposeful intrusion. As it was for me, Kevin had no idea she’d wandered through his mind on that cold, blustery day at her shop, but this was something else when the needling, invisible probes slipped through and the pain took him.
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 29
